Starmer and fees, PGRs, fundraising, graduate outcomes

This week on the podcast Keir Starmer has U-turned over student fees and finance – but what should Labour’s policy be if not free education?

Plus support for PGRs is in the news, universities are frantically fundraising in a period of fiscal constraint, and disadvantaged students go on to be lower earning graduates – why?

With Selena Bolingbroke, Education Consultant, Ben Ward, Chief Executive at University of Manchester Students’ Union, Michael Salmon, News Editor at Wonkhe and presented by Jim Dickinson, Associate Editor at Wonkhe.

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• New polling from HEPI suggests that some students have deserted Labour – but they’re not running into the arms of the Conservatives. Jim Dickinson runs the numbers.
• Here we count the cost and determines the beneficiaries of a student loans interest rates cut – and identifies what else the expensive change might be spent on.
• How can lower interest rates and frozen fees lead to graduates paying more? Jim Dickinson worries about public understanding of England’s fee system – and needs your help.
• Calculating the cost of fees is not as easy as it seems. David Kernohan tries to count the cost of free higher education.
• Here we round up some student finance news as Starmer drops free education, Wales turns away from England and PGR funding gets fudged.
• Jim Dickinson tries to work why UKRI stipends aren’t going up by as much as we thought.
• A new report shows university income from fundraising increasing. On Wonk Corner, Michael Salmon looks at where the money comes from, and also wonders where it goes.
• TASO: The value of higher education